Adelaide's First Christmas
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl/Mandrea AU, oneshot. "You like deer." It was time to take the picture for the family Christmas card for Adelaide's first Christmas, and Daryl wasn't sure how he felt about things. This is set in the "Broken Mirrors" universe, but I think it can easily be read without reading that whole story.


**AN: This is for someone who requested "ugly Christmas sweaters" for the "Broken Mirrors" universe.**

**You can easily read it without having read "Broken Mirrors," I think, but it's also a little addition to that story. It's just a oneshot and it's not necessarily something that fits perfectly into that universe. It's just a little snapshot of life.**

**I own nothing from the Walking Dead, but I own "Broken Mirrors" and that entire AU story/world.**

**I hope that you enjoy! Please let me know what you think! **

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"It's Adelaide's first Christmas card," Sophia whined out.

Her begging protest didn't stop Daryl from staring at the sweater in his hands with disgust. Sophia had practically skipped around handing them out and, from what Daryl understood, she'd already dropped off the ones at Merle's house that he and Andrea would be wearing.

"I don't know if Andrea let him see it yet," Daryl offered, "but Merle ain't gonna wear this shit."

"His is different," Sophia insisted. "And he's going to wear it because it's Adelaide's first Christmas. Besides, they're cute. Come on, Daryl. We have to have a Christmas card."

"What the fuck for?" Daryl asked. "Who the hell we gonna send it to, Soph? Wren an' Nellie? Mac an' Shirley? They know what the hell we look like."

"It isn't about that, Daryl. It's about memories! And I want it for my collection!" Sophia said. This time she was loud about it and she all but stomped her foot on the floor to accentuate the fact that she was done arguing about it. Daryl bit back the desire to laugh at her expression when her face flooded with redness from her anger and frustration.

"It's got a fuckin' reindeer on it," Daryl said.

"Because you like deer!" Sophia spat.

She was moments away from doing her best to clobber him and he could feel it. If he wasn't careful, she might very well try to beat him into submission with one of the decorative nutcrackers that her mother had placed on either side of the fireplace.

"I like the deer that walks through the yard, Sophia," Daryl said. "Not like—I like 'em like I wanna wear 'em on my shirt."

"Look at Eli!" Carol announced. "Look at Eli! Show 'em Eli! Show 'em you're the most handsome elf ever!"

Carol came through from the bedroom, where she'd been changing her clothes, with Eli on her hip. He was toddling, just barely, but he preferred to be carried most of the time. His steps were mostly unsure and he reserved them for times when he was playing in the living room and seemed to feel that it was the perfect time to show off the skills that he was strengthening day by day.

Eli was wearing a little sweater that looked like an elf shirt with green and red plastic buttons down the front. To further the ensemble, he was wearing a little pointed hat whose point flopped over with the weight of a single jingle bell.

Whether it was the shirt or his mother's enthusiasm, Daryl wasn't sure, but Eli looked thrilled with his sweater—which he kept patting with his hands—and his floppy hat—the bell of which he pinched between two fingers in a much more delicate manner than that with which he handled most other things.

Carol, for her part, was wearing another of Sophia's hideous sweater choices. It was candy cane striped and, on the front of it, it had a large building that looked like a gingerbread house. Beside it, there were large letters that declared it "The North Pole" and, somehow, there was actually something making some lights on the shirt flash.

Eli kept trying to put his mouth on the flashing lights in the same way he might dive for his mother's breasts if they were made available to him. The world, according to Eli, was a much more exciting place when it was experienced with his mouth—and Daryl wasn't entirely able to disagree with him.

"Why aren't you wearing your sweater?" Carol asked, her brows furrowing together and her smile over Eli's adorableness fading as she took in the fact that Daryl wasn't dressed like the rest of the family.

He frowned at her.

"You seen this thing?" He asked. "It's hideous!"

Carol grinned at the sweater when he held it up.

"It's got a reindeer on it," she said.

"I'm not fuckin' blind, Carol," Daryl responded. "I can see it's got a reindeer on it."

"You like deer," she offered.

Daryl narrowed his eyes at her. He didn't even need to look at Sophia to know she was standing there, arms crossed across her chest and half-covering her Christmas tree sweater, eyebrow raised, smirking at him and nodding in solidarity and agreement with Carol.

"I like deer in the yard," Daryl said. "Not on my shirt."

Carol laughed.

The laugh actually cooled Daryl's blood to an oddly icy temperature. Immediately, he knew that the laugh was not a sincere laugh. He could hear it. There was a distinct difference to the tinkling sound of her laughter when it was real and when she was forcing it for some reason or another.

"Sophia?" She asked.

She didn't have to put words to her request. She offered Eli out in the direction of his sister and Sophia took the baby. Daryl's heart kicked up a couple of beats as he watched the exchange take place. The smile never faded from Carol's mouth, but the lines between her brows reminded him that he should probably be more afraid of her smile, at that given moment, than of nearly any other expression she could be making.

"Daryl?" She asked, waving him toward her. She started down the hallway and he followed after her on unusually heavy feet.

He sighed when they reached the bedroom and she eased the door closed. The smile faded. The crease between her eyebrows did not. She crossed her arms across her chest and, for just a moment, Daryl nearly forgot that he was supposed to be serious. He couldn't help but think that, for Carol and Sophia to be of absolutely no biological relation at all, they were beginning to resemble each other in all the ways that really mattered.

"It's Christmas," Carol said.

"Not yet," Daryl offered.

"This is for our Christmas card," Carol said.

"Who we really gonna send a Christmas card to, Carol?" Daryl asked.

"Then you won't mind what it looks like," Carol said.

"This is really awful," Daryl offered, shaking the sweater in her direction.

"That's the whole point," Carol said. "It wouldn't be an ugly Christmas sweater Christmas card if the sweaters were beautiful. Sophia put a lot of thought into this. She got the sweaters for everyone."

"I don't wanna wear it," Daryl offered.

"Fine," Carol said after a second. "I understand."

Daryl was as shocked by her agreement as he might have been if she'd suddenly splashed him in the face with a bucket of iced water.

"You do?" He asked.

"I do," Carol insisted. "And, likewise, I'm sure you'll understand when I say—I don't want to have sex anymore."

"Like—tonight?" Daryl asked.

"Like—ever," Carol said, crossing her arms tight across the flashing lights on her gingerbread house sweater. Daryl laughed nervously to himself, but she didn't laugh in response.

"You ain't serious," Daryl said.

"Try me," Carol said.

"You—you couldn't stand it," Daryl said.

"I'm like a sex camel," Carol offered. "I can go for years without breaking a sweat. Can you?"

"You said you wanted another kid," Daryl offered.

"And my name is still on file for fostering and adoption," Carol said with a shrug. "My vagina's just fine without that action, too."

Daryl laughed nervously to himself again.

"You'd want it," he offered. "Before too long."

She cocked an eyebrow at him. Her left eyebrow crawled slowly up her forehead, leaving the right behind. She smirked, too, with one side of her mouth crawling upward.

She rarely challenged Daryl. It wasn't really in her nature to challenge him. But when it came to Sophia or Eli, she'd challenge him in a heartbeat.

"You want to test it?" Carol asked. "See who can last the longest?"

Daryl stood there for a moment, trying to judge if she was bluffing. She stared back at him, unwavering. He sighed.

"I wanna put this damned sweater on," he grumbled in defeat.

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"Ain't she the prettiest fuckin' elf you ever seen in your whole sorry ass fuckin' life?" Merle asked, displaying his daughter—all balled up in the crook of his arm—out for Daryl to admire.

Merle insisted that Daryl and everyone else admire Adelaide every single time they saw her. She was almost six weeks old and she was dressed in a tiny version of what Eli was wearing—right down to the tiny, pointed hat that was tipped with a bell.

"She sure is," Daryl agreed. "It's just a cryin' fuckin' shame that we don't know who the hell her real damn daddy is."

Temporary anger flashed in his brother's eyes at having Daryl get the best of him over the tiny baby girl. It was Andrea, though, that slugged him in the shoulder. There was enough force behind it, too, that he felt the warning and didn't resist the urge to rub the spot where her knuckles had made contact with him.

"Come on, Andrea," Daryl said. "I know what the hell you can get me for Christmas. Just—slip me a lil' piece of paper tellin' me where you picked that kid up so I'll know to let her old man know she made it into the world."

She reared back to slug him again and Daryl laughed. He reached out a hand and wrapped it around hers to stop her.

"I'm just fuckin' with you," he promised. "Last thing I want is it going into the newspaper that the paramedics had to come out here and collect me 'cause a woman in a snowman sweater kicked my ass over callin' her kid illegitimate."

"Nobody's calling anybody's kid illegitimate," Carol said. "Now—get in your places so I can make sure the camera's set before I put on the timer."

"Where do we get?" Merle asked.

"Sophia? This is your vision, sweetheart," Carol said.

Sophia arranged them, one by one, in front of the fireplace. She arranged them so that they were somewhat separated by family, but still huddled together. Daryl had to admit, with Eli perched on his lap and the rest of his family hovering around him, he was enjoying the picture, already, more than he'd imagined he would.

When Carol set the timer, she rushed quickly around the camera and sat next to Daryl. In the matter of a half a second, he'd settled Eli half on her lap and half on his own. She smiled beautifully as she leaned a little into the baby boy and put on her best holiday face for Sophia's Christmas card.

And Daryl smiled in spite of himself—and in spite of the ugly sweater—at the sheer happiness he saw on his wife's face.

Daryl never did get his face turned back in time for the picture to snap.

Instead, when the picture came out and the cards were sent to the few people who might stick them to their refrigerator doors with assorted fruit shaped magnets—right next to the to-do list or a bill they needed to pay—they had a pretty imperfect picture of the Dixon clan.

Because Merle was making sure that his daughter, just starting to stir to become the grumpiest elf at Christmas, was satisfied. And Andrea was beaming with pride over the fact that her husband didn't need her help to soothe their daughter. Eli was focused on something just below and beyond the camera. Sophia and Carol smiled for the picture—determined to make it perfect.

And Daryl?

He wore his hideous deer sweater, and he held his son half on his lap with one hand around his little elf middle.

And he smiled at his wife. Because, ugly Christmas sweater or not, she was always the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen—no matter the season.

Sophia never complained about the picture. She never demanded they redo it—even though Daryl knew that she'd seen it before she'd ever printed it out.

Instead, she'd simply framed a copy of it and placed it proudly on the mantle of the fireplace as a reminder of what their family was like on Adelaide's first Christmas.


End file.
